Professor Urges High School Reform

The students would attend a high school in which traditional departments like biology and English arestripped away, replaced by more abstract categories like arts and literature.

In this high school, a senior might sit in a math class with a freshman, each having been grouped on their abilities to learn.

And the courses of study in this high school would not be restricted by time, allowing the students to take, for example, four years of English instead of two depending on when the material is comprehended.

This high school is part of Dr. Theodore R. Sizer's vision for reform of secondary schools in this country, which are run on premises he calls "indefensible."

Sizer, a professor of education at Brown University and former dean of Harvard University education graduate school, shared his vision yesterday with about 100 educators attending at two-day conference on Excellence in Teaching through Liberal Arts at Muhlenberg College.

"Unless the world of teachers profoundly changes, no significant improvement of children's learning will occur," said Sizer, author of the 1984 book, "Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School."

Sizer feels the teacher education program must inform students about "real world" aspects and introduce the idea of educational reform. "It should combine knowledge about how to cope and commitment to make things better," he said.

Three things must be done for reform to occur, Sizer said. Teachers must be trained in a specific liberal arts field in which they intend to teach with a strong emphasis on writing, he said.

In addition, the premises for adolescent learning must be rethought, Sizer said, referring to his model high school.

Grouping students by age "flies in the face of common sense," he said. "Not everybody is developing at the same rate intellectually."

He said classifications like biology and social studies no longer pertain in learning and classes should begrouped in larger categories like one for just math and science, the disciplines of "specifics. After all, 2 plus 2 is 4 and if you take the heart out of of dog, there is a 100 percent chance he will die."

Sizer said the secondary system is driven by a "coinage of time" that will force some students to take four years of a subject when only two are necessary.

One area of education that bothers Sizer is the belief that education is "delivered" to students. He said students are educated when they "are doing things, not being told things."

Reform must be undertaken as a whole because "every important aspect of schooling is connected to every other aspect," Sizer said. "We have to deal with it all at once."

He suggested that there is a need for "sensible new models for teaching."

Sizer cited several innovative schools he has visited and said reform is under way. "There are too many good people frustrated with the 'status quo' to turn back," he said.